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Daily Archives: March 1, 2019

The Northern Land Council will assemble its full council for a “lock up” the day before a scheduled emergency meeting with the Minister for Indigenous Affairs next week, and exclude him from the first day of discussions.

ALMEDA COUNTY, Calif. — Alameda County supervisors voted Tuesday to overhaul the controversial Urban Shield law enforcement training program run by the sheriff’s office, stripping the annual conference — attended by agencies throughout the Bay Area — of trainings that police say were vital.

The move eliminates SWAT deployment exercises and the event’s vendor show, which showcases law-enforcement gadgets and weaponry, among other things.

Sheriff Gregory Ahern warned that the changes could violate the terms of the agency’s grant funding — worth $5 million — and lead to the unraveling of the entire Urban Shield conference.

Urban Shield dates to 2007 in Alameda County, and is tailored to prepare first responders for large-scale disasters such as an earthquake, a terrorist attack or a mass shooting. Participants include police, deputies, firefighters and emergency responders from throughout the area.

But critics have long argued that Urban Shield promotes the militarization of police, eroding trust between law enforcement and communities of color. SWAT teams, some pointed out, were far more likely to be used in minority communities for the serving of search warrants than to engage in active shooter scenarios. Urban Shield conferences have attracted protesters outside the events.

Supporters of the conference, who include police officers, deputies and firefighters, say the training helps them prepare for life-or-death situations.

The two sides faced off at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. Dozens of the program’s supporters and critics packed into a conference room at the Alameda County Administration Building in what one sheriff’s deputy called the “Super Bowl of board meetings.”

For two minutes apiece, each attendee made an impassioned plea before the supervisors, arguing that the current program was either a vital public safety tool or due for an overhaul.

The dispute centered on an ad hoc committee’s 63 recommendations to redefine the event — recommendations that were mostly supported by community activists and mostly opposed by law enforcement.

Supervisors ultimately sided with the committee and community activists, adopting all but three of the recommendations. The vote was approved by every supervisor aside from Scott Haggerty, District 1, who left the meeting early.

“No one is trying to get rid of this whole thing,” said District 3 Supervisor Wilma Chan, who called for the motion to pass nearly all of the recommendations. “I wouldn’t have made the recommendations if I would have thought we’d lose all of the (grant) money.”

Rebecca Knight, a technician with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, told supervisors about how her Urban Shield training helped save lives while she was attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas in 2017, in which a gunman killed 58 people.

Knight recalled hearing what sounded like gunshots coming from all around her. She said in that moment she remembered her training to search for exits, listen for the gunman to reload, and to take that time to move.

“I was able to lead my friends to the exits, looking for cover every chance that I could get,” she said. “I have no doubt in my mind that the training and experience I received from Urban Shield saved my life and the life of my friends that day.”

Several supporters of the committee’s recommendations said the training should prepare Californians for disasters, and should include regular citizens, not just first responders.

Claudine Tong, an Oakland resident and one of several members of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland who showed up to support the recommendations, said: “You can’t shoot or arrest a wildfire.”

Among the recommendations adopted:

• Removing SWAT deployment scenarios from law-enforcement exercises

• Eliminating the requirement that SWAT teams participate in the program

• Emphasizing de-escalation in all exercises

• Prioritizing exercises based on the likelihood and severity of disasters

• Eliminating the competition aspect of exercises

• Changing the name Urban Shield

The four-day event is funded through the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative with a $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. About $1.7 million of that is funneled into Urban Shield, while the rest goes toward administrative courses for law enforcement.

UASI officials will review the recommendations on March 14. Should they decide the new program doesn’t fit the guidelines, they may decide to pull funding altogether and award it to a different agency. Supervisors instructed the ad hoc committee, sheriff’s officials and county counsel to meet in the interim, to see if they can work out their disagreements and meet UASI standards.

It’s a task that Sheriff Ahern said is unlikely to succeed.

“The training and exercise that we provide for tens of thousands of first responders and emergency responders is in jeopardy,” he said, adding that he thought supervisors “would be wise enough to not jeopardize $5 million in funding.”

ALMEDA COUNTY, Calif. — Alameda County supervisors voted Tuesday to overhaul the controversial Urban Shield law enforcement training program run by the sheriff’s office, stripping the annual conference — attended by agencies throughout the Bay Area — of trainings that police say were vital.

The move eliminates SWAT deployment exercises and the event’s vendor show, which showcases law-enforcement gadgets and weaponry, among other things.

Sheriff Gregory Ahern warned that the changes could violate the terms of the agency’s grant funding — worth $5 million — and lead to the unraveling of the entire Urban Shield conference.

Urban Shield dates to 2007 in Alameda County, and is tailored to prepare first responders for large-scale disasters such as an earthquake, a terrorist attack or a mass shooting. Participants include police, deputies, firefighters and emergency responders from throughout the area.

But critics have long argued that Urban Shield promotes the militarization of police, eroding trust between law enforcement and communities of color. SWAT teams, some pointed out, were far more likely to be used in minority communities for the serving of search warrants than to engage in active shooter scenarios. Urban Shield conferences have attracted protesters outside the events.

Supporters of the conference, who include police officers, deputies and firefighters, say the training helps them prepare for life-or-death situations.

The two sides faced off at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. Dozens of the program’s supporters and critics packed into a conference room at the Alameda County Administration Building in what one sheriff’s deputy called the “Super Bowl of board meetings.”

For two minutes apiece, each attendee made an impassioned plea before the supervisors, arguing that the current program was either a vital public safety tool or due for an overhaul.

The dispute centered on an ad hoc committee’s 63 recommendations to redefine the event — recommendations that were mostly supported by community activists and mostly opposed by law enforcement.

Supervisors ultimately sided with the committee and community activists, adopting all but three of the recommendations. The vote was approved by every supervisor aside from Scott Haggerty, District 1, who left the meeting early.

“No one is trying to get rid of this whole thing,” said District 3 Supervisor Wilma Chan, who called for the motion to pass nearly all of the recommendations. “I wouldn’t have made the recommendations if I would have thought we’d lose all of the (grant) money.”

Rebecca Knight, a technician with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, told supervisors about how her Urban Shield training helped save lives while she was attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas in 2017, in which a gunman killed 58 people.

Knight recalled hearing what sounded like gunshots coming from all around her. She said in that moment she remembered her training to search for exits, listen for the gunman to reload, and to take that time to move.

“I was able to lead my friends to the exits, looking for cover every chance that I could get,” she said. “I have no doubt in my mind that the training and experience I received from Urban Shield saved my life and the life of my friends that day.”

Several supporters of the committee’s recommendations said the training should prepare Californians for disasters, and should include regular citizens, not just first responders.

Claudine Tong, an Oakland resident and one of several members of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland who showed up to support the recommendations, said: “You can’t shoot or arrest a wildfire.”

Among the recommendations adopted:

• Removing SWAT deployment scenarios from law-enforcement exercises

• Eliminating the requirement that SWAT teams participate in the program

• Emphasizing de-escalation in all exercises

• Prioritizing exercises based on the likelihood and severity of disasters

• Eliminating the competition aspect of exercises

• Changing the name Urban Shield

The four-day event is funded through the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative with a $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. About $1.7 million of that is funneled into Urban Shield, while the rest goes toward administrative courses for law enforcement.

UASI officials will review the recommendations on March 14. Should they decide the new program doesn’t fit the guidelines, they may decide to pull funding altogether and award it to a different agency. Supervisors instructed the ad hoc committee, sheriff’s officials and county counsel to meet in the interim, to see if they can work out their disagreements and meet UASI standards.

It’s a task that Sheriff Ahern said is unlikely to succeed.

“The training and exercise that we provide for tens of thousands of first responders and emergency responders is in jeopardy,” he said, adding that he thought supervisors “would be wise enough to not jeopardize $5 million in funding.”

NEW YORK — A woman was arrested after she hit two NYPD officers with her car and led them on a pursuit down the FDR Drive in Manhattan Thursday night, a police official said.

Two officers stopped Veronica Jagdeo, 23, in a black BMW sedan with tinted windows at 96th Street and Second Avenue on the Upper East Side at about 8:50 p.m., Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at a news conference Friday.

The officers approached the vehicle on either side and while interviewing Jagdeo, they noticed a strong odor of marijuana, Monahan said. Jagdeo then drove off toward the FDR Drive, striking one officer in the left elbow and the other officer in the right hand, Monahan said.

Officials believe there were three passengers in the car with Jagdeo, including one, identified as Jason Mohammed, 26, who was being held on a parole warrant.

The officers got in their vehicle and followed Jagdeo southbound on the parkway for nearly five miles until she came to a stop near East 15th Street.

The officers got out again, but as they were approaching, Jagdeo reversed, nearly striking one of the officers and hitting their vehicle, Monahan said. One of the officers then fired six rounds at the car as it drove past him.

That officer may have fired his weapon "in violation of department guidelines" and has been placed on modified assignment, Monahan said. The guidelines say officers can only shoot at vehicles if they are coming toward them or if they present an immediate threat to others, the chief explained.

Jagdeo and the passengers abandoned the car near East Houston Street on the Lower East Side. She was later arrested and charges were pending.

Both officers were treated for their injuries and were expected to be OK.

A section of the FDR Drive was closed for part of the night as police investigated, but was reopened.